Reference throughout this specification shall be made to the use of the present invention for handling domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and deer, although it should be appreciated that the present invention can be applied to other animals.
In particular, reference to the present invention shall be made to its use in animal directing devices such as sheep and cattle races and for the purpose for securing an animal and applying a treatment to the animal.
It should be noted however that the description of the present invention is given by way of example only and should not be seen as limiting the present invention in any way.
It is often desirable to be able to hold animals so that a treatment can be applied to the animal, or various measurements taken of the animal, such as its weight.
Using sheep as an example, it is common to bolus, drench, take blood, apply and read ear tags, check teeth and so forth.
Various devices are known which are used for the above purpose, however these devices have a number of problems associated with them.
New Zealand Patent No. 209221 relates to an animal crush that has side plates which can be moved with respect to each other by pulling a flexible restraint, which can be used in the shearing or crutching of sheep.
The resultant action of the side plate movement holds the sheep in position in order that it can be administrated to.
One of the disadvantages of this construction is that some force is required to manually pull the restraint. Further, this process is not very efficient if used in a sheep race situation as the manual operation of the side plates takes some time.
Another problem is that the floor of this construction is a considerable distance above the ground and if used in a sheep race it could impede the flow of animals through the race.
Deer crushes are known, such as those described in New Zealand Patent No. 196738, which are generally operated manually, although in some embodiments other means of operation are used.
Deer crushes however cannot be used in a race type situation as they work by having the legs of the animal dangling free below the crush and this would impede the flow of animals through the race and hence impairing the efficiency of its' operation.
Sheep weigh-crates are known which have sides that move parallel with respect to each other.
However, their operation makes it difficult for the animals to be quickly held and released and sheep weigh-crates typically have end gates in addition to side panels which can hinder access to the animal within the crate as well as interrupt the passage of animals through the system.
New Zealand Patent No. 248929 relates to an animal handling device which comprises a fixed wall and a pivotable wall, there is a ram connected to the pivotable wall and when activated it will swing the pivotable wall in contact with the animal thereby securing the animal in its present position.
Whilst this invention overcomes most of the drawbacks with the other animal handling systems currently available, it still relies on an operator to activate the ram to move the pivotable wall, this means that under normal operating conditions the animals are generally secured at random points throughout the animal handling device and some can even pass through without being secured.
In order for the animal handling device to be efficient it is necessary that all animals are secured, in turn by the animal handling device and it is preferable that the animals are secured at roughly the same position within the animal handling device as this will remove the necessity for the operator to move to different positions with whatever equipment is necessary for the administrations at hand.
A great improvement over the systems previously used was disclosed in New Zealand Patent Application No. 507346 which relates to an animal handling device that incorporates a sensor system to detect when an animal is in the required position and to activate the handling device in order to secure the animal before it can change position.
Whilst this system greatly improved the consistency of the positions in which the series of animals were held (and thereby reduce the stress on both the operator and the equipment being used), it did however still have one restriction in that if an animal was to move backwards once it had been released by the handling device it was possible for the same animal to retrigger the apparatus as it once again moves forwards.
This was found to be an inconvenience for the operator as they would then have to manually override the system in order to release the animal and persuade it to move forwards away from the equipment.
All references, including any patents or patent applications cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of the references states what their authors assert, and the applicants reserve the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the cited documents. It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents form part of the common general knowledge in the art, in New Zealand or in any other country.
It is acknowledged that the term ‘comprise’ may, under varying jurisdictions, be attributed with either an exclusive or an inclusive meaning. For the purpose of this specification, and unless otherwise noted, the term ‘comprise’ shall have an inclusive meaning—i.e. that it will be taken to mean an inclusion of not only the listed components it directly references, but also other non-specified components or elements. This rationale will also be used when the term ‘comprised’ or ‘comprising’ is used in relation to one or more steps in a method or process.
It is an object of the present invention to address the above problem or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
Further objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description which is given by way of example only.